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Writer's pictureWilna van Wyk

Curse of Knowledge in iGaming Content Writing

Updated: Mar 26

The curse of expertise also known as the curse of knowledge is a term coined by the Journal of Political Economy in 1989. This is a common pitfall iGamingVision content writers know to avoid and a trap many other casino content writers fall into. It’s a theory explaining why the most knowledgeable quite often do not make the best teachers.


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In terms of content writing, it often skips the content writer’s mind that the audience is not familiar with his/her terminology. The first step is to identify and acknowledge the gap between the knowledge of the reader and writer. Refining many years of experience is challenging, verbalizing comes naturally. Unconscious bias, mental habit, and muscle memory all play a vital role. There is also the eagerness of the content writer who enjoys sharing his knowledge with online casino players.


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The Curse of Knowledge Experiment


Elizabeth Newton, a graduate student at Stanford University used the concept as a basis for her experiment in 1990. The method was simple, requiring only two groups of students, one group the tapper, the other the listeners. The tappers received a list of well-known songs which including highly recognisable titles such as Happy Birthday. The tappers had to use their fingers to tap out the melodies for the listeners who then had to identify the songs. The tappers had to predict and indicate how many songs the listeners would guess correctly. Most predicted 50%, although the tappers only got their message across correctly or effectively once in every 40, showing the tappers always overestimated.


But why were the tappers so confident that the listeners could easily identify the songs? It’s not that difficult when you think about it. When you’re tapping you simply can’t avoid hearing the song while you tap. Although, it leads to forgetting that the listeners can’t hear anything apart from crazy tapping on a table. The result of her simple experiment proves that once a person knows something it becomes difficult to imagine how anyone else don’t.



Avoid Being the iGaming Content Writing Expert Who Knew Too Much


The question here is not if there is such a thing as an iGaming content writing expert that knows too much. It is more a question of finding a solution once your knowledge becomes a curse. Once you know the facts, for example, the melody of the song you’re about to tap. It is quite a challenge to imagine not knowing it, which makes sharing it difficult with readers that don’t know. In all fairness, not content writers, or anyone else can readily re-create their audiences state of mind.


In short, being cursed with knowledge often leads to failure in terms of effective communication. It is not only a curse that targets casino content writers but everyone regardless of their field. It is a cognitive bias that takes place when we assume that others have the same knowledge as us. It is not possible to unlearn what you’ve learned over many years.


One of the ways to sidestep the curse is by placing yourself in the shoes of the reader. Great ways iGamingVision writers use to escape the curse of expertise include the use of plain language while avoiding abbreviations, jargon, and technical terms. Be kind to your reader, use easily understandable words and shorter well-constructed sentences.


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